This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9 billion project to build the Barclays Center arena and 16 high-rise buildings at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake in 15 towers. New York State still calls it Atlantic Yards. Contact: AtlanticYardsReport[at]hotmail.com

Saturday, January 25, 2014

According to Nick Powell's 10/17/13 profile, 2013 New York City Rising Stars: Carlos Menchaca in City&State, the new 38th District Council Member, who defeated incumbent Sara Gonzalez, owes his start in politics to Letitia James, the presumptive next Public Advocate, and Atlantic Yards:

Carlos Menchaca’s journey to the City Council began as the oldest of seven children raised by a single mother in El Paso, Texas. After attending a Jesuit university in San Francisco, where according to Menchaca the Jesuits “provided the foundation for all of the ideas that I have,” he set out for New York City through the Coro Fellows Program, a public affairs graduate school leadership training intensive. Two days into his time in the city he had a meeting with Councilwoman Letitia James, who inspired him with a passionate denunciation of the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn.
“She was giving hell about this big development, this Atlantic Yards thing, and she was just like a preacher,” Menchaca said. “Energetic, amazing! So that really started my injection into New York City politics.”